Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2017
The report aims to illustrate how weakening of the statehood is reflected in the way EU and its member-states manage obesity epidemics. Private interests and behavioural turn in policy mechanisms call for more state involvement and rigorous democratic deliberation not only of nudges coming from the state, but those coming from the industry as well. The potential of nudging does not lie in the behavioural interventions it is capable of producing, but rather in the discourse it kick-started, as behavioural law and economics are paving their way into policy-making.
1 On the topic of New Governance, please, see: Héritier, Adrienne and Rhodes, Martin (eds.), New modes of governance in Europe: Governing in the shadow of hierarchy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2 Dodgson, Richard, Lee, Kelley, and Drager, Nick, “Global Health Governance: A Conceptual Review”, in Lechner, Frank J. and Boli, John (eds.), The Globalisation Reader, 5th Edition (Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2015), pp. 296 et sqq., at p. 297.Google Scholar
3 As proposed by Rayner, Geof and Lang, Tim, Ecological public health: Reshaping the conditions for good health (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2012), at pp. 101–102.Google Scholar
4 For mapping of different perspectives on obesity aetiology see Lang, Tim and Rayner, Geoff, “Obesity: a growing issue for European policy?”, 15(4) Journal of European Social Policy (2005), pp. 301–327.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5 We borrow the systems terminology from Bronfenbrenner, Uri, The Ecology of Human Development (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979).Google Scholar
6 Ciepley, David, “Beyond Public and Private: Toward a Political Theory of the Corporation.”, 107(1) American Political Science Review (2013), pp. 139–158, at p. 140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7 WHO, “Infographic – Over 50 % of people are overweight or obese”, July 2013, available on the Internet at: <http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/256295/infographic-people-overweight-obese-Eng.pdf> (last accessed on 12 March 2015).
8 Bruce Traill, W., Mazzocchi, Mario, and Niedźwiedzka, Barbara, et al., “The Eatwell project: Recommendations for healthy eating policy interventions across Europe.” 38(3) Nutrition Bulletin (2013), pp. 352–357, at p. 353.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
9 European Commission Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety, “Diet, physical activity and health - a European platform for action”, 15 March 2005, at p. 2, available on the Internet at: <http://ec.europa.eu/health/archive/ph_determinants/life_style/nutrition/platform/docs/platform_charter.pdf> (last accessed on 12 March 2015).
10 See World Health Organization, WHO European ministerial conference on counteracting obesity: Conference report, (Copenhagen, Denmark: WHO Regional Office for Europe, 2007).Google Scholar
11 European Commission Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety, “Strategy on nutrition, overweight and obesity-related health issues”, n.d., available on the Internet at: <http://ec.europa.eu/health/nutrition_physical_activity/policy/strategy_en.htm> (last accessed on 13 March 2015).
12 Kraak, Vivica I. and Story, Mary, “A Public Health Perspective on Healthy Lifestyles and Public–Private Partnerships for Global Childhood Obesity Prevention.” 110(2) Journal of the American Dietetic Association (2010), pp. 192–200, at p. 194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
13 For an in-depth analysis and critical perspective of the EU Platform see Bartlett, Oliver and Garde, Amandine, “The EU Platform and the EU Forum: new modes of governance or a smokescreen for the promotion of conflicts of interest?” in Alemanno, Alberto and Garde, Amandine (eds.), Regulating lifestyle risks: The EU, alcohol, tobacco and unhealthy diets (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp. 283–308.Google Scholar
14 Bartlett and Garde, “The EU Platform and the EU Forum: new modes of governance or a smokescreen for the promotion of conflicts of interest?” supra note 13, at p. 302.
15 FoodDrinkEurope, “Members - Companies”, n.d., available on the Internet at: <http://www.fooddrinkeurope.eu/about-us/members/> (last accessed on 13 March 2015).
16 European Commission Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety, “EU Platform members (13/01/2015)”, 13 January 2015, available on the Internet at: <http://ec.europa.eu/health/nutrition_physical_activity/docs/140728_platform_members.pdf> (last accessed on 13 March 2015).
17 Murphy, Matthew, Perrot, Francois and Rivera-Santos, Miguel, “New perspectives on learning and innovation in cross-sector collaborations.”, 65 Journal of Business Research (2012), pp. 1700–1709, at p. 1706.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
18 Hillier, Frances, Pedley, Claire L. and Summerbell, Carolyn, “Evidence base for primary prevention of obesity in children and adolescents.”, 54(3) Bundesgesundheitsblatt - Gesundheitsforschung - Gesundheitsschutz (2011), pp. 259–264, at p. 260.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
19 European Commission Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety, “Flash Report Diet, Physical Activity and Health - a European Platform for Action of 6 February 2014 Conclusions of the Chair”, 6 February 2014, available on the Internet at: <http://ec.europa.eu/health/nutrition_physical_activity/docs/ev_20140206_mi_en.pdf> (last accessed on 13 March 2015).
20 Watson, Rory, “Steps to a leaner Europe”, 335(7632) British Medical Journal (2007), p. 1238.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
21 Watson, “Steps to a leaner Europe”, supra note 20; Hillier, Pedley and Summerbell, “Evidence base for primary prevention of obesity in children and adolescents.”, supra note 18; and Rayner and Lang, supra note 3, at p. 270.
22 EPHE Project, “Public-Private Partnership”, 2012, available on the Internet at: <http://www.epheproject.com/?page_id=206> (last accessed on 15 March 2015).
23 Borys, Jean-Michel, Le Bodo, Yann, De Henauw, Stefaan et al., Preventing childhood obesity: EPODE European network recommendations. (Cachan: Lavoisier, 2011).Google Scholar
24 Borys, Jean-Michel, Le Bodo, Yann, Jebb, Susan A. et al., “Epode approach for childhood obesity prevention: methods, progress and international development”, 13 Obesity Reviews (2012), pp. 299–315, at p. 303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
25 Borys, Le Bodo, De Henauw, et al., Preventing childhood obesity: EPODE European network recommendations, supra note 23, at pp. 257–265.
26 Galea, Gauden and McKee, Martin, “Public-private partnerships with large corporations: setting the ground rules for better health.” 115 Health Policy (2014), pp. 138–140, at p. 139.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
27 Thaler, Richard H. and Sunstein, Cass R., Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008).Google Scholar
28 For an overview see Lunn, Pete, Regulatory policy and Behavioural Economics (OECD Publishing, 2014).Google Scholar
29 See for example Thaler and Sunstein Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness, supra note 27, at pp. 4–14. See also: Lusk, Jayson L., “Are you smart enough to know what to eat? A critique of behavioural economics as justification for regulation.” 41(3) European Review of Agricultural Economics (2014), pp. 355–373 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Mols, Frank, Alexander Haslam, S., Jetten, Jolanda and Steffens, Niklas K., “Why a nudge is not enough: A social identity critique of governance by stealth”, 54(1) European Journal of Political Research (2015), pp. 81–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
30 Franck, Jens-Uwe and Purnhagen, Kai, “Homo Economicus, Behavioural Sciences, and Economic Regulation: On the Concept of Man in Internal Market Regulation and its Normative Basis”, in Mathis, Klaus (ed.), Law and Economics in Europe: Foundations and Applications, Economic Analysis of Law in European Legal Scholarship 1 (Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2014), pp. 329–365.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
31 See e.g. Ulen, Thomas S., “European and American Perspectives on Behavioural Law and Economics”, in Mathis, Klaus (ed.), European Perspectives on Behavioural Law and Economics, Economic Analysis of Law in European Legal Scholarship 2 (Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2015), pp. 3–16, at p. 3.Google Scholar
32 Bruce Traill, W., “Economic Perspectives on Nutrition Policy Evaluation”, 63(3) Journal of Agricultural Economics (2012), pp. 505–527, at p. 511.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
33 Amir, On and Lobel, Orly, “Liberalism and Lifestyle: Informing Regulatory Governance with Behavioural Research”, 1 European Journal of Risk Regulation (2012), pp. 17–25, at p. 18 et sqq. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
34 Bartlett and Garde, “The EU Platform and the EU Forum: new modes of governance or a smokescreen for the promotion of conflicts of interest?”, supra note 13, at p. 291 et sqq.
35 Baum, Fran and Fisher, Matthew, “Why behavioural health promotion endures despite its failure to reduce health inequities”, 36(2) Sociology of Health & Illness (2014), pp. 213–225, at p. 220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
36 Crawshaw, Paul, “Public health policy and the behavioural turn: The case of social marketing.”, 33(4) Critical Social Policy (2013), pp. 616–637, at p. 620.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
37 Moseley, Alice and Stoker, Gerry, “Nudging citizens? Prospects and pitfalls confronting a new heuristic.”, 79 Resources, Conservation and Recycling (2013), pp. 4–10, at p. 9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
38 Thaler and Sunstein, Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness, supra note 27, at p. 96.
39 Alemanno, Alberto, “Nudging healthier lifestyles: informing the non-communicable diseases agenda with behavioural insights”, in Alemanno, Alberto and Garde, Amandine (eds.) Regulating lifestyle risks: The EU, alcohol, tobacco and unhealthy diets (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp. 309–331, at p. 326.Google Scholar
40 Bourdieu, Pierre, Outline of a theory of practice, 28th printing 2013, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), at p. 164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
41 Scully, Maree, Wakefield, Melanie, Niven, Philippa, et al., “Association between food marketing exposure and adolescents’ food choices and eating behaviors.” 58 Appetite (2012), pp. 1–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
42 Lloyd-Williams, Ffion, Bromley, Helen, Orton, Lois, et al., “Smorgasbord or symphony? Assessing public health nutrition policies across 30 European countries using a novel framework.”, 14 BMC Public Health (2014), pp. 1–20, at p. 1.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
43 Lang, Tim and Rayner, Geof, “Overcoming policy cacophony on obesity: an ecological public health framework for policymakers”, 8 Obesity Reviews (2007), pp. 165–81, at p. 171.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
44 Rayner and Lang, 2012 book, supra at p. 318.
45 Lahlou, Saadi, “How can we capture the subject's perspective? An evidence-based approach for the social scientist”, 50 Social Science Information (2011), pp. 607–655, at p. 614.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
46 Alemanno, “Nudging healthier lifestyles: informing the noncommunicable diseases agenda with behavioural insights”, supra note 39, at p. 330.
47 Lang, Tim and Rayner, Geof, “Overcoming policy cacophony on obesity: an ecological public health framework for policymakers”, 8 Obesity Reviews (2007), pp. 165–81, at p. 178.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
48 Lloyd-Williams, Bromley, Orton, et al., “Smorgasbord or symphony? Assessing public health nutrition policies across 30 European countries using a novel framework.”, supra note 42, ibid.
49 Traill, Mazzocchi, and Niedźwiedzka, et al., “The Eatwell project: Recommendations for healthy eating policy interventions across Europe.”, supra note 8, at p. 356.
50 Hastings, Gerard and McDermott, Laura, “Putting Social Marketing Into Practice”, 332 BMJ (2006), pp. 1210–1212, at p. 1212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
51 Planzer, Simon and Alemanno, Alberto, “Lifestyle Risks: Conceptualizing an Emerging Category of Research”, 4 European Journal of Risk Regulation (2011), pp. 337 et sqq., at p. 338.Google Scholar
52 Planzer and Alemanno, “Lifestyle Risks: Conceptualizing an Emerging Category of Research”, supra note 51, ibid.
53 Calise, Mauro and Lowi, Theodore J., Hyperpolitics: an interactive dictionary of political science concepts, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), at p. 96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
54 Börzel, Tanja A. and Risse, Thomas, “Governance without a state: Can it work?”, 4(2) Regulation & Governance (2010), pp. 113–134, at p. 129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
55 Held, David, Models of democracy, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006), at p. 210.Google Scholar
56 Schäferhoff, Marco, Campe, Sabine, and Kaan, Christopher, “Transnational Public-Private Partnerships in International Relations: Making Sense of Concepts, Research Frameworks, and Results.”, 11(3) International Studies Review (2009) pp. 451–474, at p. 453.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
57 Dodgson, Lee, and Drager, “Global Health Governance: A Conceptual Review”, supra note 2, at p. 297.
58 Alemanno, Alberto and Garde, Amandine, “Conclusion” in Alemanno, Alberto and Garde, Amandine (eds.), Regulating lifestyle risks: The EU, alcohol, tobacco and unhealthy diets (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp. 355–359, at p. 358.Google Scholar
59 Zygmunt Bauman argues that there has been a divorce between politics and power; power is global, whilst politics stays local. For further elucidation, please, see: Bauman, Zygmunt, “Times of interregnum”, 5(1) Ethics & Global Politics (2012), pp. 49–56, at p. 52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
60 Garde, Amandine and Friant-Perrot, Marine, “The regulation of marketing practices for tobacco, alcoholic beverages and foods high in fat, sugar and salt – a highly fragmented landscape” in Alemanno, Alberto and Garde, Amandine (eds.), Regulating lifestyle risks: The EU, alcohol, tobacco and unhealthy diets (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp. 68–93, at p. 93.Google Scholar
61 Bourdieu, Pierre, Poupeau, Franck, Discepolo, Thierry and Fernbach, David, Political interventions: Social science and political action, (London: Verso, 2008), at p. 194.Google Scholar
62 Börzel and Risse, “Governance without a state: Can it work?”, supra note 54, at p. 128.
63 Berg, Lisbet, “Who benefits from behavioural economics?”, 44(2) Economic Analysis and Policy (2014), pp. 221–232, at p. 231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
64 Berg, “Who benefits from behavioural economics?”, supra note 63, at p. 231.